Hegseth's meeting comes a day after President Donald Trump hosted Bahrain's crown prince and Qatar's prime minister at the White House. The meetings focused on strengthening diplomatic and economic ties with the Persian Gulf region.

Base commanders can approve new types of drones for training exercises, something which previously required Pentagon authority.

The latest leaked “government assessment” minimizes the amount of destruction to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites bombed by Israel and America in June. We’ll let others debate the motives of the leaker,

The Pentagon awards $200 million contracts to Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI to develop AI systems for US defense and national security operations.

Top officials at the Pentagon office that played a key role in designing the bombs used in the strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities more than two weeks ago cannot say whether the weapons were successful in reaching the deeply buried bunkers.

The announcement comes days after Grok spewed antisemitic and racist statements to its users, including praise for Adolf Hitler and “the white man.” It also referred to itself as “MechaHitler.” The debacle kick-started a wave of celebration amongst online extremists, many of whom called for the creation of more hateful AI chatbots.

Hegseth speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon on June 26, 2025. (Andrew Harnik / ) Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary,

The announcement comes just days after Grok generated antisemitic responses and praised Hitler, which were later deleted.